Pesticides and Their Effects to the Earth's Atmosphere

In our everyday lives many farmers are using pesticides to protect their fields from pests and insects. Their use is not only restricted to agricultural fields, but they are also employed in homes in the form of sprays, poisons and powders for controlling cockroaches, mosquitoes, rats, fleas, ticks and other harmful bugs. A pesticide is an envenomed chemical substance or a mixture of substances or natural agents that are intentionally released into the environment in order to prevent, inhibit, control, kill and destroy populations of insects, weeds, rodents, fungi or other harmful pests. Pesticides work by attracting, seducing and then destroying or mitigating the pests. Pests can be broadly defined as the plants or animals that jeopardize our food, health and comfort.

Pesticides can easily divert their primary purpose of fighting target species, also known as “pests”. The toxicity of these products is directly related to the undesirable effects observed in other living organisms. There are many types of pesticides like insecticides, herbicides, rodenticides, bactericides, fungicides, larvicides. Insecticides used to kill insects for example for flying pest such as adult mosquitoes are best attacked by aerosol spray or fog, while crawling insects are best treated by surface powder, spray or granules for dermal or oral entry. Insecticides kill insects by getting inside their bodies where they can act as poison. Herbicides used to kill plants whether they kill the part of the plant which they touch or killing the plants where they absorbed into it through leaves, stem or roots. Rodenticides used to kill rodents, rodents are mice, cockroaches, etc. Rodents used in communities may either be in pellet or solid block form. Bactericides used to kill bacteria, Bactericides are often used as additives in coatings and corrosion inhibitors. Bactericides are used to control corrosion caused by bacteria such as sulfate-reducing bacteria. Fungicides are pesticides that kill or prevent the growth of fungi and their spores. They can be used to control fungi that damage plants, including rusts, mildews and blights. They might also use to control mold and mildews and blights in other settings. Larvicides used to kill the larva stage of an insect. Their common use is against mosquitoes. Larvicides may be contact poisons, growth regulators, or biological control agents. These insecticides are used by humans that can affect the atmosphere, the environment and human health.

Pesticides use has raised over past few decades. Based on a study, about 5 billion pounds of pesticides are used in the whole world per year. The use of pesticides for pest mitigation has become an ordinary practice all around the world. The use of pesticides are not only bounded to agricultural fields, but they are also used in homes in the form of sprays, poisons and powders for controlling cockroaches, mosquitoes, rats, fleas, ticks and other harmful bugs. Due to this reason, pesticides are constantly found in our food commodities in addition to their presence in the air. Pesticides can be natural compounds or they can be artificially created. They may classified to any one of the several pesticide classes. Major classes include organochlorides, carbonates, organophosphates, parathyroid and neonicotinoids to which most of the usual and broadly used pesticides belong. Pesticide articulation comprises active elements along with free substances, contaminants and occasionally defilements. Once released into the environment, pesticides break down into substances known as metabolites that are more toxic to active ingredients in some situations.

There are many chemical substances that are commonly referred to as pesticides that occurs in different vital metabolic processes in different organisms. The effects of pesticides range from damage to the transmission of nerve impulses and inhibition of blood clotting to paralysis of the respiratory and circulatory centers. Pesticides aim to destroy or control the target organisms such as insects, fungi, or weeds. Except for target organisms also the non-targeted organisms are always affected by using pesticides. Wild animals and plants, domestic animals and crops, and human beings are included to the affected non-target organism pesticides.

A synthesis paper entitled, “Pesticides and their Effects in the Atmosphere” aims to establish a study that tackles the harmful effects of pesticides to the environment. This study may serve as a guide to know the effects of pesticides in our atmosphere and also in the health of the humans. Because nowadays, in excessive use of pesticides, humans don’t consider the possible harmful effects of pesticides to the atmosphere and also to human health.

As a researcher, the student aims to know the effects of pesticides to the atmosphere and to human health. The researcher wants to know if the effects will be useful to the environment or it will be harmful. The importance of this synthesis paper is to know the possible effects of pesticides to our everyday lives. To know if it will be useful to humans or it can be harmful to our health. And also the researcher wants to know how to prevent and cure the possible harmful effects of pesticides to the atmosphere and to human health.

The researcher made research questions to know the effects of using pesticides to the atmosphere like: How harmful are pesticides to the atmosphere? To know how harmful the pesticides to the atmosphere and solutions how to prevent the harmful effects of pesticides to the atmosphere. To know how pesticides harm the atmosphere. How harmful are pesticides to the health of the people? To know how harmful the effects of pesticides. To know how it affects the human health and to know how vital and critical the effects are. To know the effects of pesticides to can cure easily or the effects of using pesticides to the human body is very critical. Are pesticides contributory to global warming? To know if pesticides is contributor to the atmosphere. What elements it emits to the atmosphere so that if contribute to the global warming. What are the possible way so that it can be lessen and it will help the atmosphere to lessen global warming?